The POTA is the most comprehensive validated measure of consumer attitudes and beliefs about advertising as an institution. Pollay and Mittal (1993) developed the scale to capture the full range of beliefs consumers hold about advertising — both positive (advertising informs, entertains, and supports the economy) and negative (advertising promotes materialism, corrupts values, and is deceptive) — and to identify which belief dimensions predict overall attitude toward advertising and criticism of advertising. The scale organises seven belief dimensions into two higher-order groupings: Personal Use beliefs (product information, social role and image, hedonic/pleasure) reflect what advertising does for individual consumers; Social Effect beliefs (good for economy, materialism, value corruption, falsity) reflect the perceived societal impact of advertising. Pollay and Mittal (1993) found that Personal Use beliefs are the strongest predictors of overall positive attitude toward advertising, while Social Effect beliefs — particularly Value Corruption and Falsity — are the strongest predictors of advertising criticism. The scale enables segmentation of consumer populations by their advertising belief profiles and has been extensively used in cross-cultural comparative research on advertising acceptance and regulation attitudes.
7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree); seven subscales of 3 items each; subscales averaged separately; two higher-order groupings (Personal Use and Social Effects)
Product Information — PI (3 items): belief that advertising provides useful, decision-relevant product information. 7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree). Items averaged. [Personal Use grouping]
Social Role and Image — SRI (3 items): belief that advertising provides social identity and image information. 7-point Likert. Items averaged. [Personal Use grouping]
Hedonic/Pleasure — HP (3 items): belief that advertising is entertaining, enjoyable, and pleasurable in its own right. 7-point Likert. Items averaged. [Personal Use grouping]
Good for Economy — GE (3 items): belief that advertising is beneficial to the economy and standard of living. 7-point Likert. Items averaged. [Social Effects grouping]
Materialism — MAT (3 items): belief that advertising promotes materialism and desire for unnecessary possessions. 7-point Likert. Items averaged. [Social Effects grouping]
Value Corruption — VC (3 items): belief that advertising promotes undesirable social values. 7-point Likert. Items averaged. [Social Effects grouping]
Falsity/No Sense — FNS (3 items): belief that advertising is deceptive, misleading, and lacking in truthfulness. 7-point Likert. Items averaged. [Social Effects grouping]
Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.
Report all seven subscales separately as well as the two higher-order groupings (Personal Use: PI + SRI + HP; Social Effects: GE + MAT + VC + FNS). Some subscales (especially SRI and GE) have modest reliabilities (~0.65); interpret with caution. The Materialism, Value Corruption, and Falsity/No Sense subscales are the most predictive of overall criticism of advertising. The POTA has been used cross-culturally — note that Social Effects beliefs are more predictive of ad criticism in collectivist cultures, while Personal Use beliefs are more influential in individualist cultures. Product Information beliefs are positively correlated with advertising acceptance across all cultural contexts studied.
Pollay, R.W., & Mittal, B. (1993). Here's the beef: Factors, determinants, and segments in consumer criticism of advertising. Journal of Marketing, 57(3), 99–114.
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